iPads Get a Serious Workout!

Students create some fantastic screencasts!

Just before I first started out as a high school chemistry teacher I really thought I knew my material.  After all I had four years of college level chemistry behind me.  How could teaching high school  be that hard.  But I soon realized that passing a written test on some content, even with a good grade, is not anything close to explaining that concept at an understandable level to 35 energetic high school students in the period right after lunch.  I remember after a few days of my first teaching job saying to myself, "I really need to know this stuff a lot better!"  Some days I would be what we call "just 10 minutes ahead of the students."  On top of that I would get a question from a good student that would just stump me.  And then there was this one student that everyday kept saying, "Mr. Bradbury, I just don't understand!"  I must confess that I let that student exasperate me at times.  I would try one explanation and then another and then an example.  And the student just kept saying, "But I don't understand!"

Teaching a concept  requires a whole deeper level of understanding.  I have often wished I could give my students and oral exam where each one has to get up in front of the class and explain a concept to everyone else.  But then again that can be terrifying!  I remember when my Algebra 1 teacher made me get up in front of my whole class one late September school day during a typical late summer Southern California heat wave.  There was no air conditioning in classrooms back then.  I remember wilting under the pressure!  The only thing that saved me was that I could face the chalkboard and not my classmates.  But I could still feel the arrows of their stares on my back.  I wanted to climb under my desk.  I learned that I clearly did not understand Algebra!

Or was it that I was so full of fear in front of the class that I could not have performed even if I had all the necessary knowledge.

Nevertheless I think the best proof of deep understanding of a concept is being able to clearly articulate that concept in a very relaxed  conversational manner.  Screencasting allows just this.  One of the most difficult concepts in chemistry is Molecular Orbital Theory.  Understanding MO theory requires an accumulated knowledge, the ability to think abstractly, and the ability to see and draw three dimensional objects in two dimensions.

Screencasting can be an "equalizer"

The other thing that screencasting allows is a bit of privacy.  The students can really wrestle with concepts on their own.  Then they get to prepare their presentation, explain it and edit their explanation.   (Hey, as a teacher I take lots of time to prepare myself!)  The pressure is low.  What my colleagues and I are finding is that some of the best screencasts are produced by some of the "forgotten" students that sit quietly in the back of class hoping the teacher will never call on them.  Screencasting lets everybody have a chance to shine.

The Assignment

I decided to have my students create a screencast of their explanation of how to draw the hybridization box diagram and molecular orbital diagrams of a particular molecule or ion.  This is no easy task!  I must say it is a challenge for me to do it.  Even more it is a huge challenge to draw intricate diagrams on the iPad.  Here is the specific assignment.

1. Draw the box diagrams showing the ground state, excited state and  hybridized state for your assigned molecule or ion as shown in class.  Show the VSEPR structure.  Label all orbitals and show the relative energy of each.  State the type of hybridization (sp² etc.)  

2. Draw the contour diagram for the assigned molecule. Label angles and label orbitals.  No credit will be given if drawn incorrectly.  Show orbital overlap correctly and show electrons.  Make all drawings large.  State the shape of the molecule.  http://tinyurl.com/luw

Teacher Expectations Exceeded (Big Time!)

I had a three hour block of lab time.  Secretly I hoped that they would take about an hour and then we could continue working on our chemistry experiment.  But I was so surprised, yet again, by how seriously they took this assignment.  Some of them spent over an hour just planning and preparing how they were going to present their explanation.  Most of them had already completed the assignment on paper.  Some of the students went over the three hours and a few asked if they could keep the iPads during the 1 1/2 hour lunch break.  

They really put me to shame.  When I do a screencast that is say five minutes long I will spend no more than ten minutes on  the whole process.  Yes I am more experienced and so I take less planning, but when I saw what some of these students had done I must say I was overwhelmed.  When I compare their work to some of my screencasts I just want to crawl under a rock!  Here are a few that were created on Educreations.  (The Educreations posts are not as easy to embed in a blog as are ShowMe screencasts)  

Even if you have no idea what a molecular orbital is I think you will be very impressed by the work of these students.  They do a fantastic job of presenting. And this isn't just two plus two equals for this is very high level stuff.  What level on Blooms Taxonomy do you think this hits?

Link to 1st student created screencast on Educreations

Link to 2nd student created screencast on Educreations

Link to 3rd student created screencast on Educreations

These students really took pride in their work.  Some of them were very interested in my response to their work.  I think they felt like they really accomplished something intellectually significant.  I think they did!

iPad workout part 2:  Working on a digital lab report in Organic Chemistry

Last semester I told my students to create a digital lab report for my Organic Chemistry class.  At that time I had no class set of iPads and only one or two students had their own.  Most of the lab reports were created with a desktop or laptop.  But now with the iPads I think this could be a lot easier.  So for the distillation lab I told my students that they would be doing a digital lab report.  Everything that is covered in a regular written lab report must be presented in a screencast.  I recommended the app Explain Everything.  The big hurdle is that the students are not allowed to take home the iPads, although 4 or 5 have their own.  Usually we do two distillations, simple and fractional.  We do these distillations over two days.  But simple distillation often goes so fast, and the real hold up is setting up the apparatus.  This time I decided to do both distillations in one day.  They would have to work quickly, but they would only have to add the fractional column for the second distillation.  By doing this in one day it opened up a whole three hour lab period for working on the digital lab report.

Again, these students spent a good deal of time just prepping for their screen cast.  They uploaded text and pictures and diagrams.  I was impressed with their hard work.  In the end the three hours was not enough time for them to complete the lab report.  This was good for me to learn.  Normally they have to spend significant time outside of class working on the report anyway.  But many of them do not have iPads of their own.  (Although they seem to be appearing more and more as the semester goes on.  Way to go parents!)

Several students asked if they could come in the following week to work on the report.  So what I chose to do was give them one week to complete the digital report and send me the link.  I think some or many of them will come and borrow an iPad while I am on campus in another class or in my office hour.  So part 2 is to be continued...